As an interruption from a WiiWare line-up of bonsai barbering, beanbag-tossing and goo-fueled bridge-building we now can download Ronimo Games' Swords & Soldiers, a side-scrolling real-time strategy game for one player or two. It's like Patapon without the controllable drumbeats and with a lot more Aztec sacrifice.

But in the demo-free zone that is Nintendo's Wii download service, is it fun enough for your 10 bucks?

Loved
The Look And Feel: Side-scrolling RTS is a sketchy proposition. But thanks to bold and bright character design and a minimalist remote-only control scheme, it's quite easy and enjoyable to hire gold-miners and begin generating the Viking axe-men, corpse-resurrecting shamans, golden giants, old Chinese men and other warriors at your disposal. Depending on which of the three ethnic groups you control, you have a different tech trees' worth of characters to generate or spells to elicit. Those characters you generate go on a victory march to the right of your screen, usually to destroy a base about 20 screen lengths away… unless you're a bad strategist. Then it's just a sorry death march.

Boulders, Sacrifices And More Unexpected Stuff: The game's first campaign is deceptively simple. As the Vikings you learn the basics (and hunt down a killer chili pepper – the game's kind of a comedy). Ten missions and at least an hour later, you get to play as the Aztecs, and that's when Ronimo's originality begins to shine. Effective Aztec strategy involves sacrificing warriors, a tactic opposite to winning with brute Viking numbers. The Aztec and Asian campaigns reveal many surprising units, tactics and special attacks, including the unleashing of a player-controlled screen-tall bouncing boulder and others I won't spoil.

Hated
Aged Thinking Why must I play the three campaigns in only one order? Why must the default difficulty become so hard halfway through Aztec, but then not allow me to switch to the locked Asian campaign instead? And I hope the levels don't have as narrow an array of winning strategies as it sometimes seemed. The best strategy games should allow hard-thinking players multiple paths to victory. I suspect there are multiple methods for some of Swords & Soldiers' most vexing levels, but I found quite a few that seemed to have only one right way to win – as best as I could deduce.

At a time when the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3's downloadable services have hit a bit of a lull, WiiWare finally is coalescing into a platform with several varied and well-made games.

Swords & Soldiers could have easily sold for more than its list price, as its graphics and sound are top quality, and its 30-mission campaign, bonus missions and split-screen multiplayer present a generous package. For the team to not stumble while making a game in such an untested genre is quite an achievement. Plus, it has violence.

Swords & Solders was developed by Ronimo Gamesfor the Wii's downloadable game service WiiWare on June 8. Retails for 1000 Nintendo points ($10 USD) Played through all three campaigns over about six hours, dropping from the default difficulty halfway through. Played the bonus missions and sampled the game's split-screen multiplayer.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

Sharpen your weapons: “Swords & Soldiers” is coming!

Ronimo Games announces their studio and the first competitive strategy game for Wii Ware: Swords & Soldiers.

UTRECHT, THE NETHERLANDS – August 15, 2008 – The developers of the original version of “de Blob” announce their new game studio Ronimo Games and their first title: Swords & Soldiers.

Ronimo Games is founded by seven developers in Utrecht, the Netherlands. As students the team was responsible for the original pc game “de Blob”. Being an innovative and fun game, “de Blob” became popular on the internet and was eventually picked up by THQ. The publisher bought the IP and will soon release the new version of “de Blob” for Nintendo Wii.

Fabian Akker, one of the co-founders: “de Blob was the eye opener for us, that we can make cool games and function as a good team. The game definitely gave us the opportunity to start our own company”.

The team is developing a new game for Wii Ware: Swords & Soldiers. Swords & Soldiers is a sidescrolling real time strategy game, in which three distinct factions battle for the powers of the gods. The game will feature a single player campaign and a competitive splitscreen multiplayer mode as well as several other game modes. Three screenshots are included with this press release.
Akker: “We always dreamed of designing an RTS and when Wii Ware came out we immediately figured that this was our chance.”

Swords & Soldiers will be the first competitive strategy game on Wii Ware and is scheduled for European, Australian and American release in Q4 2008.

About Ronimo Games
Ronimo games is a new developer, founded by the original creators of “de Blob” in October 2007. The team focusses on creating innovative games for a broad audience. The studio became a Nintendo licensed developer in spring 2008 and is currently working on their first Wii Ware title: Swords & Soldiers. For more information on Ronimo Games and its products visit www.ronimo-games.com.

About “de Blob”
“de Blob” started as a student game project for the city of Utrecht, in which the player rolls through the city as a giant alien paintball, painting the streets and buildings. THQ bought the IP and is currently working on a new version of the game for Nintendo Wii. For more information and a free download of the original “de Blob” visit binnenstad.hku.nl. For more information on the new THQ version of “de Blob” visit www.deblob.com.